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Bacteria Decides if you’ll be Fat or Thin

Some people
can’t lose weight and some people can’t put it on and I’m one of those people
that people hate because I can eat whatever I want without gaining a pound
whilst my friends find it extremely difficult to lose weight and all that is
because we have different metabolisms to each other. It’s also a well known
fact that we get our looks from our parents so it won’t be a surprise if I tell
you that we also inherit our weight from our parents too.

The first
research of its kind has found that the existence of a particular type of
bacteria in our gut has the potential to determine if the person will be fat or
thin and it can actually be inherited through our DNA not just by our environmental
factors.

The study was
conducted at Kings College London in the Department of Twin Research who
collected more than a thousand faecal samples from 416 pairs of twins and
sequenced the genes of each person. They found that certain types of bacteria
were more abundant and similar in identical twins and much less in
non-identical twins and this research proves that our genetic makeup influences
the composition of bacteria in our gut.

One type of
bacterium in our gut called “Christensenellaceae” was more abundant in
individuals of low-body weight in large numbers and less in heavier
individuals. They then went onto researching the effect of this bacterium by
injecting it into mice. Mice which were injected with the bacterium gained less
weight than the un-treated mice signifying that this bacterium is highly
heritable and easily found in thin people and also discourages weight gain.

Up until
recently, the reason for weight gain / loss has been explained by the
environmental factors, health and dietary changes people go through and it
wasn’t popularly linked to our genetic makeup however our DNA plays a big role
in our weight which explains why people can’t gain weight no matter what they
do and others gain weight just by thinking of food.